SOC 123 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Casual Sex, Storge, Obsessive Love
●Relationships
○What attracts us to others?
■Affective influences
●Feeling good around someone leads to attraction. Feeling bad (or
having bad experiences) around someone leads to disliking
■Propinquity (or proximity) effect
●Closer two people are physically, the more likely they are to meet
and become attracted
○Mere exposure effect
■Familiarity breeds attraction
○More rewarding/less costly
●Can also lead to dislike
■Desirable characteristics
●Kindness, honesty, status, good looks
●Although a small flaw makes someone even more desirable
■Similarity
●Attitudes, values, personality, physical attractiveness, physical
features, preference for activities
■Reciprocal liking
●More likely to like someone who likes you
●If someone dislikes you, you end up disliking them
■Physiological arousal
●Imagine meeting someone of your preferred gender walking across
this bridge
●The physiological arousal caused by fear on the bridge can be
misattributed as attraction to the other
●Found in classic study by Dutton and Aron (1974)
○Why is physical attractiveness so powerful?
■Aesthetics
●We enjoy looking at something beautiful
■“What is beautiful is good” stereotype
●We assume that attractive people have many other desirable
characteristics
■evolutionary/unconscious factors
●We may unconsciously be attracted to someone attractive because
we assume appearance is an indicator of a person’s health and
fertility
■Rewarding
○When all the most attractive people are taken, what do the rest of us do?
■Strong tendency for “matching” in real life on physical attractiveness and
other attributes
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
■Occurs to some degree due to the laws of supply and demand
■But, more complex matching can occur as well: most common is an older
(successful) man with a younger, attractive woman
○Why differences between men and women preferences?
■Evolutionary explanation
●Sex differences in partner preferences would have evolved as
strategies to cope with unequal parental investment (it doesn’t take
as much effort for a man to pass his genes down as it does for a
woman)
■Social structural perspective
●Sex differences may be a response to social structures, social
opportunities and social conditioning
■Differences in sexual attraction (short term flings) and romantic attractions
(long term relationships)
●Main difference is physical attractiveness is more important for
sexual attraction
●Red is important for sexual attraction
●Attachment, love and relationships
○What type of attachment style are you?
■Adult attachment style (or dimensions) is an individual difference variable
●One’s general approach to developing and maintaining
relationships
■3 attachment styles
●Securely attached
●Anxious-ambivalent
●Avoidant
■Adult attachment is affected by early experiences, but can continue to
change based on new experiences
■Is attachment style associated with relationship success and sexual
functioning?
●Secure
○Greater sexual satisfaction
○Pursuing sex for relationship reasons
●Anxious ambivalent
○Lower level of sexual satisfaction
○More frequent sex
○Using sex as a means to get closer to partner
○Higher number of sexual problems
●Avoidant
○Lower levels of sexual satisfaction and sex in relationships
○More acceptance of casual sex and pursuing sex for non
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Feeling good around someone leads to attraction. Feeling bad (or having bad experiences) around someone leads to disliking. Closer two people are physically, the more likely they are to meet and become attracted. Although a small flaw makes someone even more desirable. Attitudes, values, personality, physical attractiveness, physical features, preference for activities. More likely to like someone who likes you. If someone dislikes you, you end up disliking them. Imagine meeting someone of your preferred gender walking across this bridge. The physiological arousal caused by fear on the bridge can be misattributed as attraction to the other. Found in classic study by dutton and aron (1974) We assume that attractive people have many other desirable characteristics. We may unconsciously be attracted to someone attractive because we assume appearance is an indicator of a person"s health and fertility. Strong tendency for matching in real life on physical attractiveness and other attributes.
